Review of Kansas City

God knows English politics is corrupt,but America seems to have raised duplicity to another level.Wheeling,dealing,threatening,bribing,snouts deep in the trough....I would have to be held at gunpoint before I'd vote for anybody.In the poor black Wards of Kansas City in the mid 1930s it doesn't matter who you vote for,your life is not going to get any better,the successful politico is just going to get richer. With a plot and characters remarkably similar to early Runyon,Mr Altman parallels the development of KC jazz with its turbulent social history. For lovers of Bennie Moten/Count Basie type music the movie is at least an aural treat;for the average moviegoer,"Kansas City" is very much a curate's egg. Unless you are at least familiar with Hawk,Pres,Bird and Jean Harlow your enjoyment of the movie may well be limited to the amount of admiration you have for Mr Altman's more personal work. With all due respect to the acting talent involved,no one apart from the much - maligned Miss J.J. Leigh has much to work with.As "Blondie" she has the only role that actually develops during the course of the film. In an era when movies were enormously influential her conscious morphing into a Jean Harlow persona is touching rather than laughable. With "Kansas City",Mr Altman continued to plough his lonely furrow.That it was not a great commercial success is hardly surprising,but admirers of maverick works will get pleasure from it.Jazz loving moviegoers,themselves to some degree mavericks,scouring the schedules in a usually vain attempt to satisfy both their Joneses,should seize the moment.